


No Use Crying

by Dreadnought



Series: Spent Brass [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Internalized Homophobia, Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2019-05-31 09:52:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15116918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dreadnought/pseuds/Dreadnought
Summary: August 2, 1991. Fort Campbell, KY.  Jamie and George work on the Triumph.An accompanying story for the ficBaghdad Waltz





	No Use Crying

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first in a series of brief side stories accompanying my WIP fic [Baghdad Waltz](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10261136/chapters/22734353). I'm calling the series "Spent Brass" [(click here for more on the origin on the term)](https://dreadnought-dear-captain.tumblr.com/post/175123974275/you-asked-i-told-and-new-upcoming-bw-feature), and it will contain little important interactions and historical moments that I want to capture but just can't fit in the fic for various reasons. I plan to post them between BW chapters from now through the conclusion of the fic. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy.
> 
> Follow me on [Tumblr](https://dreadnought-dear-captain.tumblr.com/) for additional Baghdad Waltz content.
> 
> Beta work provided by the fantastic Nonush, Princess of Power and of keeping me motivated and on track with all my writing. I literally could not do any of this without her. You can find her on [Tumblr](https://pitchforkcentral86.tumblr.com/)

August 2, 1991

“Good. Now what’s next?”

Jamie can feel a bead of sweat sliding down his face, tickling like insect legs. He hitches his shoulder up and tips his head down, wiping it with the sleeve of his t-shirt. His dad has been doing the same all night, their hands both covered with oil, work towels dirty and cast about them where they’re seated on the garage floor.

He’s almost got everything re-assembled. He’s drained the oil, pulled apart the fuel pump and the sump, cleaned the filters with diesel, and scraped out all the gunk he could reach with his fingers. His dad hasn’t helped once, except to help clear the parts out of the way so he could work. He’s observing, his vigilance tangible, quiet except for the occasional prompt.

Jamie twists around behind him and grabs the oil filter, the cover plate, and socket wrench, along with four spring washers and lug nuts, moving each within arm’s reach of where he’ll be working. He stretches out his skinny legs, newly springing with dark hair, and rolls onto his back, then inchworms himself underneath the jacked up body of the ‘78 Triumph Bonneville his dad bought off some eccentric redneck in Alabama named Critter.

He works carefully, feeling George’s eyes tracking his movements. Feeling the smothering heat and humidity that have barely dissipated with the setting of the sun. Beyond the open garage door and behind the sound of the wrench ratcheting, a few neighborhood kids yelp and laugh in the street, though how they’re not evaporating into the thick Kentucky air is a mystery.

“How you doin’ under there?”

George still has a New York accent he’s clung to, stubbornly, perhaps more stubbornly with each move deeper into the South. It’s rubbed off some, Jamie thinks. He hopes. He’s tried to take it for himself, even if it’s woven into an odd tapestry with unwanted linguistic artifacts his ma’s deep Texas twang and from their moves through Fort Hood and Fort Rucker and now to Campbell. He doesn’t like the way it sounds all mashed together, and neither do other kids, but he doesn’t know how to leave the parts he despises and keep the parts he likes.

“I’m fine,” Jamie mumbles. He presses his lips together tightly.

When everything is secured into place, he scooches back out from under the bike. His dad is looking down at him with a small smile, handsome and sweaty, tired around the eyes from a long week of training operations with the 101st Airborne. Jamie hates it when he’s away in the field. Hates it when it’s just the three of them pretending they’re fine without him. Especially now. Even though he can’t say anything, even though everything is too terrible and shameful to tell anyone, especially his parents, even if the cost of George knowing would be catastrophic, it still feels better to have him around. As long as he can keep everything tucked away tight tight tight, it feels good to have him here. It feels safe. Mostly.

“What’s next?” George asks. He leans back, resting his hands on the concrete, tattooed arms bracing him. Jamie might mistake him for relaxed if his brow wasn’t drawn so deeply. If his torso wasn’t strung so tense.

Jamie sits up and crosses his legs. “Re-prime the engine oil.”

George tilts his head toward the workbench near the door. There’s a jug of oil on top — real oil, never that synthetic crap. Not for these old British bikes. Jamie reads his cue and rises to his feet to retrieve it.

And then he hears it.

“Hey, Mr. Barnes.”

It’s the sound of white light exploding, as empty as a vacuum but blinding. Stunning. Jamie freezes, and he’s there, in long shorts and a tank top, standing in their driveway with his hands in his pockets, tall and tan and well-muscled, legs spread in an A-frame of unshakable, sturdy confidence. He says _Hey, Mr. Barnes_ , but he’s looking at Jamie. Only at Jamie.

“Hi, Jack,” George replies, standing abruptly, wiping his hands on a rag he swiped from the floor. Jamie can’t see his dad’s face because he… can’t… but his tone is glacial.

“Hi, Jamie.”

Jack’s smile is a rock drop in the gut.

Jamie can’t…

His smile sharpens. Time stretches into meaninglessness, and the space around them fuzzes until it doesn’t feel like a garage or a house or even a world anymore. It just feels like a feeling, one too staggering to give a name to. And then Jack turns his head in a smooth, controlled motion and looks down the block.

“Just wanted to say hi.”

He looks to George and then to slowly pans to Jamie, pausing for a moment or ten minutes or maybe not at all.

“Night, y’all,” he then says with a nod, the courteous kind that Southern boys give as they train to become Southern men, and starts flip-flopping back down the driveway.

“Tell your dad I said hi,” George calls halfheartedly.

Jack tosses a wave over his shoulder without looking back and disappears into the darkness.

George might be looking at Jamie now, but it’s hard to concentrate through the sensation consuming him. The heat. The unbearable heat that’s coming from his body now, slipping in between his cells, squeezing them, threatening to break their membranes and crush them and dissolve him from the inside out.

“Hey, are you—”

Jamie takes an unsteady step back, and there’s a dull _clank_ as his shoe comes down on the edge of the oil pan, and time is oddly shaped again, because the oil seems to spill out forever, a black hole consuming the garage floor—

George curses, and then his hand is wrapping around Jamie’s arm and yanking him away from the growing maw before it reaches his feet. And he watches it grow and grow as George chucks towels and old brown t-shirts at it.

“You gonna help me here or what?”

Jamie flexes his fingers. He can’t…

George looks up at him from where he’s squatting, sopping up the stain with any dry fabric he can reach. He searches Jamie’s face, briefly, then turns back to the pile of rapidly soaking rags on the floor.

“Why don’t you refill the oil while I take care of this?” He glances up. “Okay?”

Jamie manages a nod. “I’m sorry...”

“It’s fine.” The corner of his mouth twitches. “I’ll show you how to clean it up later. Just go fill the oil.”

Jamie manages to un-freeze himself, but his small body feels like a heavy, lumbering thing as he retrieves the oil from the workbench and drags himself back over to the bike. He can barely keep the bottle steady as he fills the main tank, and when he opens the crankcase to pour a quarter pint of oil in there, he spills it everywhere. Wipes it up with his fingers and t-shirt. Anything to keep more of it off the floor. He’s already made such an unbelievable mess. It’s not even their house. It’s the Army’s house. And he’s ruined it.

By the time he’s done with that, George has the soaked rags all piled up in the oil tin. The floor is ugly with his mistake, his carelessness, his wrongness and... God, why did he let that happen? Why does he always _let_ things happen? His dad is standing over the mess with his hands on his hips, staring down at it, shaking his head a little, and he must be disappointed, and God, what if he’s angry—

“I’m so sorry,” Jamie says again. “I’ll clean it up. Just show me how. I’ll clean up everything.”

George turns around. “It’s okay. We can take care of it tomorrow.” He waves an easy hand toward the bike. “Let’s get her started.”

Jamie bites his lower lip, scraping the inside of it along the metal of his braces, as they take the bike off the jacks and get it on the ground again. George stands back, arms crossed loosely, while Jamie circles the bike to make sure everything is in order, flipping up the right passenger footrest as he goes so that he doesn’t clip his heel on it when he kickstarts it. 

He hits the ignition switch by the headlight, then he reaches around both sides of the bike to tickle the carburetors for a few seconds. He usually smirks at this part, because it’s such a goofy thing to do, but tonight it’s all business. Just get some fuel in there so the thing starts in one kick. One kick. He can get this right. Forget that he froze. Forget that he stepped in the wrong place. Forget that he ruined the floor. Forget _Jack_. Jesus Christ. Forget forget forget forget— just do this _right_.

He straddles the seat and presses down on the kickstart lever to turn the engine over once, gives it a little throttle, and kicks.

Nothing.

He kicks again.

Nothing.

He swears under his breath and kicks again, clenching his teeth, feeling his dad’s piercing blue-gray eyes on him, and he kicks and kicks and kicks, and he draws in a loud, gasping breath and he exhales a _Fuck_ , and he growls, voice cracking, and kicks harder, and things start to get blurry, but he doesn’t care because he has to _start this thing right_ , and he kicks and kicks until George is yelling _Hey!_ but he doesn’t stop because he can’t mess this up too, even though he’s already completely fucked up _everything_ —

His dad’s hand comes to rest on his shoulder. “James. Stop.”

Jamie’s heel slams down one more time, and the thing still doesn’t start. And he slumps in the seat, head hanging low, and something drops onto his thigh, just below the hem of his shorts. There are two large hands on his shoulders now, squeezing. And a voice, soft and insistent.

“Hey, don’t cry. There’s nothing to cry about. It’s just some oil. It’s nothing.”

Jamie digs his fingernails into the flesh of his legs.

The kill switch. He forgot to hit the kill switch. God _damn_ it.

A sound tries to tear out of him, and he clamps his hand tight over his mouth, cramming it back in.

“Hey… Kiddo, it’s nothing. This is nothing.” George’s voice is louder now. Wavering. Pleading. “God, please stop crying. You gotta stop.”

George brushes a hand through Jamie’s hair, and that’s all it takes, and Jamie mumbles _I’m sorry, I’m sorry_ , into his palm, and his breath is hitching hard and he can’t stop it. He can’t stop. And so he apologizes some more and cries, and his dad says _Fuck_ and starts pacing the garage, and Jamie’s not sure what’s worse — having him near or having him walk away. It’s all terrible. It’s all just terrible.

George comes back. He takes Jamie by the armpits and coaxes him off the bike, bearing his weight easily. Then he pulls him into a hug.

“What is going on with you lately? You have to tell me,” he murmurs, petting Jamie’s head.

Jamie wraps his arms tight around his dad’s torso, lean with Army muscle. His chest smells like used oil and sweat and, under that, the same smell that he’s had since Jamie can remember, a good smell, a rich smell. And he can’t risk losing this. Not for anything. Not even if his entire heart is eaten from the inside out by the agony of his secrets.

So he stays quiet, even though George keeps petting him and saying _tell me, please, you have to tell me_. And he just breathes and holds on tight until the warm, solid chest beneath his face heaves a sigh of resignation.

“How ‘bout we go get Baskin-Robbins.”

Jamie pulls away slowly, wiping his eyes roughly with the backs of his wrists. He glances up at his father’s face, hoping that maybe he’ll be smiling, but he’s not. His eyebrows are gathered together again, mouth set in a frown, and his hands… his fingers are knitting and unknitting together, unsteady and fidgeting, before he crams them into his pockets.

“Go see if Erik and your ma want something. I’ll finish cleaning up.”

Jamie hesitates.

“Go on.” George shoos him with those fidgety hands and stoops to pick up the rags.

Jamie turns and shuffles to the door, feet leaden, eyes wide, bitten lips moving in a silent prayer.

Please, please please, _please_ don’t let him know.

Don’t ever let him know.

 


End file.
